While this may not be breaking news it's an interesting read for anyone with an interest in politics and American history. Let's hope it actually sees the light of day. The U.S. government still has a chance to appeal and keep Nixon's testimony sealed ... if the government is able to do that, how can it claim to stand for transparency in government? Via the BBC:

The secret grand jury testimony given by former US President Richard Nixon over the Watergate scandal is set to be released after more than 36 years, following an order by a federal judge.
Judge Royce Lamberth granted a request by historian Stanley Kutler to release the transcript, citing of its historical significance.
But it will not be unsealed until the government has had a chance to appeal.
The political scandal prompted Nixon to resign in 1974. Nixon, who died 17 years ago, was the only US president to resign. He left office amid the fallout after a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington.

“Richard Nixon, if he were alive today, might take bittersweet satisfaction to know that he was not the last smart president to prolong unjustifiably a senseless, unwinnable war, at great cost in human life,” Ellsberg told CNN. “And his aide Henry Kissinger was not the last American official to win an undeserved Nobel Peace Prize.”

“He would probably also feel vindicated (and envious) that ALL the crimes he committed against me — which forced his resignation facing impeachment — are now legal,” he continued.

“That includes burglarizing my former psychoanalyst’s office (for material to blackmail me into silence), warrantless wiretapping, using the CIA against an American citizen in the US, and authorizing a White House hit squad to ‘incapacitate me totally’ (on the steps of the Capitol on May 3, 1971)… But under George W.

‘The cease-fire in Vietnam, the release of American prisoners of war, Watergate, U.S. policy in the Middle East, the assassination of two U.S. diplomats in Sudan by the Black September Organization …’ are just a few of the topics discussed on the tapes to be open on Thursday. CNN reports:

The Richard Nixon Presidential Library will open a trove of records at the facility and online Thursday, including 265 hours of White House tapes, officials said.

The library, in Yorba Linda, California, will also open more than 140,000 pages of presidential records and 75 hours of video oral histories, officials said. The library is part of the National Archives.

The White House tapes span February 1973 to March 1973 and include a few from early April 1973. There are no transcripts for these tapes, but the library has produced a detailed subject log for each conversation, National Archives officials said in a statement.